Fore Street, Beer, Devon - Part Three

This is the third part of Fore Street in the village of Beer. It's a village with the most amazing variety of architectural styles, many of which are late 19th and early 20th century Arts & Crafts buildings, along with the much older vernacular cottages and 19th century parish church. Part One and Two can be seen here and here.

In the previous part, we finished with Beach Court, seen above, which was the last building I photographed on the West side. I haven't been able to take the actual last building - The Anchor Inn - being unable to get back to Beer yet.

A view from Beach Court taken of the East side, below, where we're going next.

The first one highlighted is Sunny Nook. It already has a post of its own, which can be seen here where there are more details and photos.

A gorgeous Grade II Listed Art & Crafts building, it comprises three separate cottages in a terrace range. Dated to 1894, it has been credited to the architect David Carr, who designed several buildings in Beer, although it isn't mentioned in the Listed Buildings entry.

Built with traditional rubble walls and stone dressings, it has that lovely higgledy piggledy look of different roof and window heights. The central roof coming down low over the ground floor windows is called a catslide roof, which is an English term for very steep, low roofs on which cats can't walk across without sliding! :)

There are also some interesting lozenge-shaped brick chimney stacks, one of which can be seen below.

Walking up the street the next building along is this charming 'Captain's Cottage' with stone rubble walls, dressed stone quoins and a thatched roof.

A Grade II Listed building, it was built circa early 18th century. Called The Cottage Restaurant in the listing, it appears to be just a private dwelling now. The panelled central door, seen below, is set into a moulded door case, flanked by two three-light casement windows with leaded panes.

 

And to top that is this wonderfully ebulient thatched hood above the door.

There's a shop next door, which I didn't photograph (apart from some of it in the above photo) but next door to that is the wonderful Marine House. One of two art galleries, the other one - Steam Gallery - is on the opposite side and can be seen in part one. They can also be seen in their own article together here, where there are more details and photos.

The boat-shaped oriel window on the front is really delightful with its long stretch of casement lights. I thought this building was a listed one but apparently not, which I found surprising, although it may have changed its appearance during refurbishing.

The windows on the top floor have the iconic Elizabethan/Tudor style drip moulds above them, which may either be original or a modern addition.

And one of the photos highlighting the tiled surround at the base of the building front seen below, containing marine subjects of fish and crustations among the plain black and red tiles.

From then on there are several shops and cottages until we come to Gravel Cottages, which is a group of 7 cottages built sometime during the 18th century, two of which - nos 7 & 8 - are listed buildings.

However, the only photos I have are of number two, and the only reason I took them is because I really liked the door whilst walking past. The white plank door set into the white roughcast wall is really delightful with its black door surround and stained glass window containing depictions of porpoises.

There's another shop after Gravel Cottages, followed by the parish church of St Michael.

Built in 1887, this church succeeded a 16th century chapel on this same site. An even earlier place of worship may have stood here before that since 1122 AD, when Beer and Seaton belonged to the Abbey of Sherborne

A Grade II Listed Building, consisting mainly of coursed stone and built in the Early English/Decorated style, it's a large church comprising the nave, low north and south aisles with north and south transepts.

The walls and most of the tower consist of Hoole Head blue limestone and the columns which support the nave arcade are of Devon marble.

The lovely multifoil round windows above the arcade are really lovely and the photos below show close-ups of the marble topped with beautiful foliate carvings.

This is a fabulous, friendly church with lots of interesting artefacts and a very welcoming atmosphere. To finish this brief account here are a few more photos of the exterior, below.

 

All of these and a lot more photos and information can be seen and read about in its own article here.

Unfortunately, I don't have any more photos of buildings on this side of Fore Street, so this is going to be a rather short post. However, I do have ones of another building right at the top of the street just off the Square. I know absolutely nothing about it, not even its name, but it really struck me with its unusual architecture so I'm going to include it anyway. :)

It looks as though they consist of two separate dwellings with others behind it. I didn't have time to check properly as I whipped these off whilst waiting for my bus back to Seaton. I will definitely check it out when I get back over though.

And that's it for now. I checked out the rest of the buildings on that side of Fore Street and I will definitely be going back to take more photos at some point. When I do I'll make a Part Four for those missed out that warrant inclusion, as there'll be some from both sides.

Anyway, I'm sorry I was so long getting back to the blog. It took just over five weeks to get properly well from the flu and then I had so much else to catch up with. I did write quite a lot of the Devon Training Centre that I was going to post first but I've really struggled with it so I decided to do Fore Street instead, which I enjoyed a lot more!

I missed Spring because of the flu, but I had a lovely Summer Solstice celebration and hope everyone enjoyed it too. 

I don't know what's coming up next as I'm not sure if I'm going to finish the training centre one after all. It's been 17 years since I started my website and then the blog and I'm almost at the end of everything I've got now, so there's only one thing for it - I have to get out more!

Cheers, everyone. :)

An Early Update

I was going to wait until June but I need to apologise for my absence recently. I was doing well on several articles until two weeks ago, when I came down with 'Flu. I've been mostly in bed since then and seem to get better one or two steps forward then back two or three. Not too good at the moment.

I had nothing in stock that I would normally treat it with - cough medicine, fruit juice, vapour rub, etc - and I was rather hoping that one of my neighbours would hear me coughing and call to see if I need anything, but no such luck, lol.

Anyway, I found out I can get some of those from my usual grocery deliveries, which I've ordered and I'll be expecting later on today. So hopefully I'll be recovering a bit better.

On a happier note, I have new photos processed and scanned for the article about Cross Street, Seaton. I still have more to do for other posts but those will have to wait for now. The ones I've been writing up are Dartmoor Training Centre (almost finished) and Other Photos: Slides (about half way through). There are also others waiting in the wings too, but which I've only tentatively started.

These photos were taken on a walk down the main road from my road down into the town. Taken two summers ago, I wanted to capture the amazing front gardens bursting with flowers and also the amount of wild flowers and grasses sprouting up from the pavements and base of the walls and fences. These are just a fraction so I might make up an article about them at some stage.

The last one was taken from outside my flats across the Close where I live.

I hope that everyone's well and enjoying the lovely Spring weather. And Happy Beltane for yesterday for those who celebrate.

Cheers! :)

I'm absolutely exhausted now so it's back to bed for me and a nice little afternoon snooze before the main slob of the evening! ;)

 

Odds & Ends: Part Five

For those new to these articles they are for highlighting odd photos, with a bit of history where appropriate, that don't fit in anywhere else and aren't enough for a post of their own. I've been meaning to add these first two for ages but kept forgetting; a bench seen on a walk stuck partway into a hedge on a country lane with beautiful teal blue peeling paint on a green background.

When I first got into urbexing it was the peeling paint artfully photographed by explorers that really grabbed me, reminding me of these two taken some years before. :) 

I was walking past this building in Newton Poppleford and took a quick photo with no particular intention of doing anything with it but just because I liked it. I know absolutely nothing about it but it looks fairly old, with its old beautifully faded orange bricks and consisting of two storeys with an opening on the first floor for loading and unloading goods. It may have had a winch above it. The roof is made of corrugated metal, which possibly substituted for a thatch at one time.

Another of those odd quick photos when walking past is this butcher's shop in Bridport, Dorset. I didn't know at the time that it's actually a Grade II Listed Building but it was the old tiles with the shop name that made me look and is the only photo I have of it.

Colourful painted bicycles used in a roundabout garden at Seaton sea front, looking gorgeous with baskets full of flowering plants. Seaton was host to a bicycle race at the time, which this commemorated. Sadly they're long gone and it's rather boring now but it was really lovely at the time.

These next few belong to a set of photos taken showing the rears of some buildings in Seaton.

They fascinate me as they are often quite different to the fronts of the buildings. I have ten of them, which I found whilst going through some photos, and scanned a few days ago. I won't add them all though, as I might take some more and write a proper article together with the frontages for comparison.

This building contains Lloyds Bank, which is about to close. I can't find any details about it so far but will try again for the article. I love seeing the difference between this attractive white facade at the rear and the more imposing front of the bank. The two small roofs at the right of it also look very different to the front. 

And speaking of rear views, I have two more taken at the back of Knowle House in Sidmouth. They were quick ones, of which I don't have any of the front. I always meant to go back for those but wasn't able to. Again, it's really interesting to see the parts that aren't often seen.

Some odd ones taken at various times of beach huts along West Walk in Seaton. I just find them interesting, especially those that are a bit worn and weatherbeaten. I did have several more but I can only find these three at the moment.

Another Seaton one is this photo of the Seaton Tramway, many years before it was demolished and rebuilt. As there were Victorian style lamposts outside I gave it an old-fashioned sepia look.

Then there are these ones, taken from Sidmouth of the MSC Napoli - a merchant carrier ship which foundered in Lyme Bay during a storm in January 2007. It was starting to break up so the men were winched off by helicopter and the ship towed towards Branscombe in Devon.

She was still five miles out when the oil began leaking so she was anchored and a huge boom was brought in to encircle the ship to prevent the oil from spreading and reaching the shore. 

Some of the huge containers were lost to sea and many others were washed up on the beach, 40 of them at Branscombe, plus some at Sidmouth and Seaton. Sadly, the news brought in scavengers from all over Britain, helping themselves to belongings from crates of people who were moving abroad plus merchandise, including a load of brand new motorcycles.

As it happens the salvaging rules are that anything taken has to be registered with the salvage officer. However, many did not. You can imagine tiny villages surrounded by narrow Devon lanes choc-a-bloc with cars & vans. One lovely story was that of a young man who'd found a beautiful tea set. Later, when he saw a news item of a woman upset about the loss of her household goods - especially that same tea set - he ascertained her details and sent it to her, which was really kind. 

I took the Napoli ones when at Sidmouth some time later with a friend. Even with a telephoto lens, it was difficult to get a really clear photo of it with the small boats continuing salvage operations. The photos aren't all that good and I never did anything with them so I finally decided to add them to the Odds & Ends collection.

Then to finish off with, three photos taken many years later of fishing boats and crab pots at the mouth of the River Sid at Sidmouth. And a seagull!* :)

 

*As the RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) will tell you, Seagull isn't a correct name, as it is just Gull with the specific kind to begin with such as Herring Gull, etc. However, like many people, I've always called them seagulls and I prefer that to plain old gull, so I'm continuing to use it. :)

As always, I really enjoyed finding more of these odd photos and getting them into the light of day. Some were found amongst my collection of actual prints, which needed to be scanned, whereas others had already been scanned and were hiding in my pc photo folders. I've still got many more folders to look through and will be adding any I find to the next Odds & Ends.

Next up will be a surprise - mainly because I don't know myself yet! ;) Let's hope the weather gets warmer soon as I want to try getting out further afield and it's been extremely and unusually cold for the South-West recently.

Cheers, everyone. :)